Dialogue 1
A: I’ve come to hear about your offer for bristles.
B: We have the offer ready for you. Let me see ... here it is. 100 cases Houston Bristles, 57 mm, at 10 pounds sterling per kilogram, C.I.F
European Main Ports, for shipment in June 2001. The offer is valid for five days.
A: Why, your price has soared. It’s almost 25% higher than last year’s. It would be impossible for us to push any sales at such a price.
B: I’m a little surprised to hear you say that. You know very well that markets for bristles have gone up a great deal in recent months. The price we offer compares favorably with quotations you can get elsewhere.
-- 我是来听取你们对猪鬃的报盘。
-- 我们已为你准备好了报盘。让我找一找，啊，在这里，100箱57毫 米休斯敦猪鬃，每公斤成本加运费保险费到欧洲主要口岸价10英 镑，2001年6月交货。报盘五天有效。
-- 为什么你方的价格猛涨，几乎比去年高出25%？按这种价格，我方 实在难以销售。
-- 你这样说让我有点惊讶。近月来猪鬃市价涨了很多。我方所报的价格与你从别处能获得的价格相比，是较为便宜的。
A: I’m afraid I can’t agree with you there. I must point out your price is higher than some of the quotations we’ve received from other sources.
B: But you must take the quality into consideration. Everyone in the trade knows that US’s bristles are of superior quality to those from other countries.
A: I agree that yours are of better quality. But there’s competition from synthetic products, too. You can’t very well ignore that. Prices for synthetic bristles haven’t changed much over the years.
B: There’s practically no substitute for bristles for certain uses. That’s why demand for natural bristles keeps rising in spite of cheaper synthetic ones. To be frank with you, if it were not for the long- standing relationship between us, we would hardly be willing to make you a f.mp3 offer at this price.
A: Well, we’ll have a lot of difficulties in persuading our clients to buy at this price. But I’ll have to try, I suppose.
-- 恐怕我不同意你的说法，你们的价格比我们从别处所得到的一些报价高。
-- 但是你方必须考虑到质量的问题。同行中人人皆知美国猪鬃质地优于其他国家的供货。
-- 我承认你们的猪鬃质量高，但还有人造制品的竞争。你恐怕不能忽视这一点吧。今年来，人造制品的价格并无多大变化。
-- 在某些用途方面，几乎没有东西可以代替猪鬃。尽管人造制品价格 便宜，但对天然猪鬃的需求还在不断增长，原因就在这里。老实 说，如果不是为了我们双方长期以来的关系，我们不大可能以这样 的价格向你方报实盘的。
-- 唉，要说服客户以这个价格购买，对我们来说还真不容易。不过看来，我得试一试。
